


don't wish, don't start, wishing only wounds the heart

by nosecoffee



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, F/F, He could murder me and I'd say thanks, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mourning, Murder, Referenced murder, Skinny Dipping, Sweetwater River, blame, i love jughead, lying, novels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 15:29:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10028348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosecoffee/pseuds/nosecoffee
Summary: On the 15th of May, just before sunset, Jughead Jones and Archie Andrews drove out to Sweetwater River, under the guise of skinny dipping.The next thing that is known for sure, is that Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge, arriving at the river to join the two boys, came upon Archie by the side of the river, attempting to perform CPR to a drowned Jughead.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'I'm Not That Girl' from Wicked

_On the 15th of May, just before sunset, Jughead Jones and Archie Andrews drove out to Sweetwater River, under the guise of skinny dipping._

~

Archie wills him to breathe. Begs him silently to breathe. Presses his hands to his chest and pushes thinking _stay, don't go, don't leave, stay._

Or maybe he's saying it out loud.

CPR isn't working.

He's not _fucking strong enough._

He can't make him stay.

Betty and Veronica eventually tear Archie away from him - away from his body - and Archie thrashes, yelling.

"Archie! Archie, you have to stop!" Betty calls to him.

"It's over, Andrews!" Veronica yells, slaps him, and he gasps, the sting sharp and painful. "He's _gone._ Let him go. You can't do anything more for him."

Archie pants, long, pained noises breaking from his throat, watching the still body on the shore with horror.

"Jughead's dead."

~

_"Aren't you scared?" Archie had asked, and Jughead had shook his head, smiling fractionally, a smile that did not reach his eyes._

~

"You pushed him into the river." The sheriff says. It's a statement, not a question. Archie is staring at his hands.

"Yes. I shoved him and he tripped and he fell. Hit the water hard. There were rocks, so I had to run down the shore to find a safe place to go after him. By the time I found him, he washed up, and unconscious, and I couldn't get his heart going." The sheriff looks pained.

"Was there anyone else with you?" He questions.

"Betty and Veronica only got there when I was performing CPR." Archie admits, still looking down. He cannot bare to look up and see the blaming eyes of this man.

"Why did you push him in?"

"We were fighting."

"Why were you fighting?"

"He..." He trails off, biting his lip. Remembers that Sheriff Keller still doesn't know about Grundy.

"Archie? I need to know so that I can help you." The sheriff puts a hand on Archie's shoulder and he flinches.

He's shaking. "We were fighting about a bad relationship I'd been in. He said I was still hung up on it, said I should just realise that it was unhealthy and finally get over this girl. I think we were just fighting about a lot of things and that one was just the last straw."

"Did you intend to kill him?" At last, Archie looks up, a mix of guilty emotions in his eyes.

"No. God no. I was just angry. I wanted to take it back the moment it happened. I never wanted him to die."

~

_The next thing that is known for sure, is that Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge, arriving at the river to join the two boys, came upon Archie by the side of the river, attempting to perform CPR to a drowned Jughead._

~

FP doesn't look at him.

He's standing across the waiting room, in the morgue, arms folded, and there's a lost look on his face.

He hasn't looked at him since he walked in.

Archie licks his lips, feeling his phone buzz in his pocket.

By now, the whole town should know.

The whole town should know that Jughead fell in the river, and panicked, and drowned.

Hit his head on a rock, and Archie was too late to save him.

FP won't look at him and he's not sure whether it's a good thing.

"I'm sorry." Archie says, not knowing what exactly is acceptable to say to a grieving yet absent parent.

"Good." FP says, a look in his eyes that's something close to what he used to see in Jughead's.

Archie puts his face in his hands, and cries.

~

_"Stay," he'd begged, pulling away from Jughead's mouth to press down on his heart, "don't go, don't leave, stay."_

~

It feels like the town's been desensitised to this kind of thing, ever since Jason.

It's either that, or not a lot of people cared about Jughead.

Betty and Veronica and Kevin show up. Pop Tate and Hermione Lodge and Archie's dad are also in attendance.

FP is not.

Figures.

Archie's halfway through his eulogy when two people walk in, taking seats in the back.

An older woman with jet-black hair and a stern face, and young girl with a red ribbon in her hair and a gap between her two front teeth.

He knows this girl and it stops him short.

Jellybean Jones was one of the sole people Jughead loved unconditionally, besides the fact that he hardly saw her.

Betty's standing next to him and puts a hand on his shoulder. It brings Archie back to reality.

~

_The police arrested all three teenagers before rushing Jughead to hospital, where he later died._

~

He tries to catch her at the wake, but Jellybean's already gone.

~

_Jughead's death was ruled an accident, as the story the three told made the rounds._

~

"I will never stop being sorry. Can you forgive me?" Archie asks the night, when it's far too cold and far too late into the night

 _What's to forgive? You did your best._ The wind seems to respond.

Archie likes to think that Jughead's still there, just being carried along by the wind and living in falling leaves.

~

_That Jughead and Archie had been fighting, and Archie shoved him into the water, and Jughead accidentally hit his head._

~

Jughead's death didn't seem to be as big a deal as Jason's had been.

There appeared to be three people who faded in his absence.

Betty had nightmares about the feel of the cuffs against her wrists while she stared at Jughead's stiff corpse, knees buckling, the feel of Veronica's body catching her, her own wrists cuffed as well.

Veronica had dreams about the coldness of the room she'd been questioned in, the cold of the waiting room in the hospital, in the morgue, the cold of the look in Jughead's dads eyes when he glanced at her.

Archie blamed himself for his death. Wouldn't let up on the blame. At least they all felt miserable together, and could wallow in that misery, sure that nothing that bad could happen again.

~

_And panicked._

~

They were wrong.

~

_And drowned._

~

On the 28th of February, just before dawn, three years after Jughead Jones's death, a fifteen year-old girl formally known as Jellybean Jones comes upon the body of 20 year-old Midge Klump, a necklace of fresh blood from her slit throat decorating her Ivory skin, on the shore of Sweetwater River.

Police are on the scene within half an hour of her discovery, and because of her father's heart failure a year prior, the only person there to comfort Forsythia is a stern aunt, nosily questioning what the girl was doing down by the river at that time in the morning. Or at all, for that matter.

Others arrive on the shore not long after that, but Forsythia is not there, as Archie Andrews, and Betty and Veronica Lodge search for the girl.

She is already gone, whisked away home.

Archie Andrews, apparently, doesn't know the meaning of privacy when he arrives at her house.

"Archibald Andrews," she says as he enters her room. "To what do I owe this pleasure? Or are you just here for the scoop of the fucking year?"

Archie flinches minutely. "Jellybean-"

"That's not my name," Forsythia snaps. "You lost the right to call me that when you murdered my brother."

"I'm sorry." Archie says. She scowls.

"What are you here for?" Forsythia demands, looking tired with her wet, tangled hair, and day-old eyeliner.

"I just want to know what you were doing at the river." Archie replies, playing with his own hands in nervousness.

"Is it a crime to be there?" She demands.

"No." Forsythia sighs, glancing at a couple of framed pictures on her bedside table.

"I went to visit Juggie. I don't expect you to understand." She can see his reflection in the glass.

"I do. I do understand." Archie insists.

Forsythia turns to him with a stormy, accusatory expression. "Considering that you're the one that killed him, you can understand why I thought the contrary."

Archie shakes his head, "I didn't kill your brother."

She snorts, unamused, "Sheriff's reports say otherwise."

"How'd you read the police reports?" He looks curious, wondering how a fifteen year-old with a strict guardian could have that kind of information under her belt.

In response, she shrugs. "I'm close with a member of the Serpent's who dated Kevin Keller. Remember that my dad was one of them before he died." Archie wears an expression that tells her he wants to admit something but is scared of what that might mean for him.

"Jelly-" he winces at her glare, "Forsythia. I lied."

Forsythia frowns. "About what?"

"About the fight Jughead and I had. We weren't fighting. Quite the opposite, actually." It takes her a moment before it dawns on her.

"You were involved with him?" Her voice is barely a whisper.

"Why do you think I told the police we'd gone to go skinny dipping? Do you really think two straight guys would go skinny dipping together?" She nods a little, looking a little conflicted.

"I guess that makes sense. But what about Betty and Veronica? Didn't they come to join you?"

Archie quirks an eyebrow. "Considering they're now married?"

Forsythia sighs, knowing she's been beaten, "Sure."

"We were standing on the edge of the shore, and the ground gave way, and we fell into the river, I got caught on a branch and didn't get too roughed up, but Jug hit the water hard and got washed away. You know he was never a good swimmer. By the time I got away and found him, it was too late."

"But why did you lie?" Forsythia demands.

"To give someone the blame." Archie says, like it makes perfect sense. "When Jason died everyone was so confused as to who to blame, so suspicious of everyone because there was no proof against anybody. I thought it would be easier on everyone if they could just blame me and move on. If they had a culprit, someone who wasn't quite a murderer, they wouldn't question it."

She knows it makes sense, can't argue with him on that point. "Do the police know this?"

"No." He shakes his head, red hair catching the light at odd angles.

"Archie." Archie looks up.

"Yeah?" He looks almost like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

"What are you really doing here?" Forsythia is aware of the venom her voice had held earlier. Is aware of how gentle she's being now.

"Jughead was writing a novel, when he died. It was on his laptop, I don't know how long it was, but he was really proud of it, always working on it. I wanted to know if you had it." It isn't really news to her.

"The novel?" She asks.

"The laptop." Archie clarifies. Forsythia shakes her head, already knowing its fate.

"It was in his bag the night by the river. The police confiscated it. Wiped it clean and gave it back. There's nothing left on it."

"No..." He looks heartbroken, like the last piece of Jughead left has been torn from him. After all, Forsythia did get his hat.

"But." She says, remembering the feel of the plastic in her palm at the station.

"But?" There's a sudden hopeful glint in Archie's eyes.

"They gave a flash drive, said there was something on his laptop that they thought id find interesting. I've never had the heart to look at it." She pulls it from her bedside table drawer and hands it to him.

"Forsythia." She shakes her head, pushes him away from the bed, gently.

"Maybe it's what you're looking for."

~

"I'm not much of a writer," Archie tells her, handing her the flash drive two months later.

Midge Klump was murdered, by who, however, is still unknown.

"I don't know how good you are, but I figure you should read it."

Jellybean takes it, thumbs it carefully, puts it in her pocket before looking out over the rushing water.

"Thank you, Archie."

"I don't think that I've done much to warrant that but I'll take it."

"If I deem it good enough, I'm sending it to a publisher."

"Nice."

"I might edit it too. God knows what your editing skills are like."

"Jelly..."

"Archie. I'm sorry for calling you a murderer. He loved you, I know."

"Thanks."

~

She reads the whole thing in one night, and the first time she cries is when she reads the dedication page.

_For Jellybean, the only candy/person I can truly stand. You mean the world._

The transition from Jughead's narration to Archie's is obvious, even after heavy editing on Jellybean's part. By sunrise she emails it to Archie and they agree to credit Archie as an author.

~

It takes them two years to actually get it published.

 _Sweetwater Murders_ is a hit, and suddenly the world is reading about people from a little town, who's name is never mentioned.

Critics call it a masterpiece, claiming that the sudden murder of the author in the middle of the book sets a new pace for novels, raises the bar in creative intervention.

_Cheryl is on the hunt and she's thirsting for-_

_Jughead Jones died the day after writing that sentence, never actually finishing it because he was interrupted and invited somewhere, before he could write out the last word._

Archie reckons Jughead is scowling at them in spirit, claiming that he had a better plot set up in his head.

Jellybean shoves him in response.

In the novel, Jason and Midge's murderers are never found, and the town changes because of it.

In real life, Jason and Midge were killed by Hal Cooper, arrested six months after Midge's death and hauled away in cuffs.

It's not the kind of ending either Archie or Jellybean is expecting.

It's good enough.

Fin.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed. If you did, please feel free to leave a comment, and/or a kudos, and track me down on Tumblr @nose-coffee.
> 
> Some other notes: I don't condone murder, please don't murder people, that's bad.
> 
> Again, thank you.


End file.
